Ice Buckets For Josie, Colette, Quinn, Lachlan, Calhoun, and Michael Brown

The Professor and I enjoyed a bottle of really good Malbec last night.  This morning I enjoyed the presence of my children by my bedside at 5:45.  One of those terms “enjoyed” is being used sarcastically, by the way.

I was challenged yesterday in the ice bucket challenge, and I’m like . . . . mehhhhh.  OK.  I’ll do it but I’m not going to nominate anybody because while I am totally down with this social media movement and its awesome effect on awareness and dollars for the terrible disease ALS, I’m also aware that it’s kind of had its day.  But I’m going to be a good sport and do it, and the hubs and I will donate to the ALS Association.  We will also donate to Cystinosis Research Foundation in honor of my buddy Josie, to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in honor of a sweet little girl named Colette and in memory of her twin brother, Quinn, and to the BBB-accredited charity, the St. Louis area foodbank in memory of Michael Brown, and in hopes that our donation helps to feed hungry people in Ferguson.

While I’m linking to causes, I’ll link to the be the match bone marrow registry, in hopes that some of you may join.  My friend Mary has 20 month old twin boys.  She let us know a month ago that one of the twins has a very rare leukemia known as JMML – and yesterday confirmed that the boys are identical twins, meaning there is a close to 100% chance that the other will also develop the disease imminently.  They are looking for a donor match on the bone marrow registry – one has not been found yet, so Mary’s held one very successful donor drive in her son’s honor, and friends are working on hosting another.  There is no hope for the boys’ recovery without a bone marrow transplant, so finding a donor match is imperative.  Ya’ll can order a kit online and send in a swab to be tested, and place yourself on the registry – preggos can register, just let them know you’re preg and they will set your registry to go live 6 months after your due date.  Consider it?  Lachlan and his twin Calhoun are little blond haired Irish kids, so they need a Caucasian donor – but any of you out there who are of non-Caucasian descent, and especially any of my mixed-race lovelies, please consider signing up.  There are way more white folks on that registry than any other race, and race matters in the bone marrow matching game.

It’s been a tough news cycle lately, both personally and in the wider world.  My only choice in the face of such pain and fear is positive, affirmative action.  So I’ll have my boys dump cups of ice water on my head (I am not going to be one of those Ice Bucket FAILS where a giant heavy cooler of water is dropped on my head from on-high, giving me a concussion or a broken limb), and I guess I’ll post a video (oh Lord, aren’t we all so sick of those videos), and I’ll pay some money to some things, and focus on the positive.  We have more power to do good than we know.